This is a boxing story if you care to read it.This is also a gotca story. Arlington, Texas around Sept 67. I am home on leave after extending for another 6 mos in Nam.I visit my old boxing club to see who isstill figtjing. My old Coach J.R. asks if I will spar with one of his boxers. I agree, haven't sperred or worked out for 13 mos. Just a little sparring, RIGHT? JR has using trhe open clas time ,3mins for 3 rounds. I am at welterwieght and my sparring partner is a light-heavy. So for 3 rnds,I use my jab, angles, footwork(asin- in-n-out)Iwould have won on points if for real. After the sparing match, JR tells me I just frought with the Open Lt.Weigth Sate Golden Gloves Champ. JR still laffs about after all those years past. Joe

The Long Beach International Karate Championships was started by Ed Parker and was the venue for Chuck Norris, Mike Stone, Joe Lewis, Benny Urquidez and many other 60's names, many of whom went on to fight full contact. And a lot of these early "point" tournies were more hard contact than what it later became, sometimes having "hard contact allowed" as part of the language.

In the early 70s there was a fight where the loser through a tantrum, yelling and swearing in the ring. I'm thinking it was Everett "Monster Man" Eddy, but that is probably just a rumor of a made up memory.

The loser yelled at the judges, yelled at Ed Parker and the referee, jumped out of the ring and with his posse following, stomped up the aisle. A small old Japanese man stepped out and held out his hand, stopping the competitor. He told the black belt to go back to the ring and apologize. The pissed off fighter looked down at the old guy and said, "What the **** are you going to do if I don't?"

The old guy said, "First I will break your arms, then I will break your legs." And stood there camly, waiting. With out a word the fighter turned around, walked back to the ring, climbed in, grabbed the mic, apologized and bowed out.

Later Black Belt mag wrote an article about the old guy. He had a martial arts school in California that required students to be black belts to join. They were supposedly graded on how difficult and beautiful their moves were made.

"Preparing mentally, the most important thing is, if you aren't doing it for the love of it, then don't do it." - Benny Urquidez

Victor Martinez worked for me and one day he said, "You're Henry's dad?" I said yeah and he said Henry was really cool in high school and told me this story. Henry trained karate for 8 years.

I was walking down the hall and Henry was in front of me and this big jock made some crack (Henry is hapa-haole and Utah is racist and he's a anarchist punk lefty know it all and is small, his picture is on my log) and launched a big hay maker right at Henry's face. Henry was so cool, he dropped down into a crouch with both hands over his head and his elbows covering his face. Then he jumped up and superman punched the jock in the throat.

I asked Victor then what happened. Victor said the jock withered on the floor holding his throat and Henry just walked around him and kept going.

I asked Henry and he said, "Something like that might have happened once."

"Preparing mentally, the most important thing is, if you aren't doing it for the love of it, then don't do it." - Benny Urquidez

I remember the first time I ran into somebody who actually knew how to fight. It was a guy who had wrestled and then boxed after high school. In every other one on one fight I'd ever experienced, I managed to take my opponent down to the ground. This guy stuffed all my takedown attempts and proceeded to make hamburger out of my face.

Last weekend, I was competing in the San Diego Grand Internationals tournament, stickfighting division. Armor is worn so you can hit each other with rattan without much trouble. In the open weapon division, I picked a 6ft rattan staff, and one of my opponents was an old karate man in a tattered red gi. Reminded me of an old Jim Kelly. I'm not really sure what style he practices, but he stickfights there every year, and in open weapon he picks the tonfas.

I've seen him a few years now, and like two years ago I saw his match against a guy with a staff. He rushed past the staff and whacked the guy in the head with a tonfa, giving him a bloody head through a WEKAF headgear. So, he's been around a long time and has been using those tonfas for years against other weapons.

The match starts. I swing at his head, and he blocks with the edge of his closest tonfa, karate-style, then tries to rush in. I manage to step back and hit him in the head with the other end. I realize that if that's his strategy, I can exploit that by forcing his block. So I swing again and he blocks up, but I adjust my strike so it hits his ribs. We reset again. This time, I swing at his head again but step across my center as I do it, and he blocked and rushed like I thought he would. I continue my turning motion into a spinning back kick, which he runs right into. When I step down from the kick he's on the ground. I try to help him up but he remains on the ground. We give him some time and the judge asks if he wants to keep fighting. He says no. I'm pretty sure I hit his liver through the armor. I felt good about landing the kick but bad that I hurt some guy. A few minutes later he's fine so I just feel good about it. It was such a martial-artsy moment. A friend said he video'd everything but hasn't uploaded anything yet.

At the same tournament, different match, I was fighting staff against double stick. After I get several points in a row, the guy complains to the judges that the staff I'm using is too thick and rigid (hur hur). He points to a dent in the bars of his WEKAF mask. There's a good chance I was responsible for that. I tell him its the same type they fight with at the Dog Brothers with only fencing masks and gloves for protection. After some disputing, I'm over it so I toss my staff to the side and say "Just give me two short sticks, then!". I'm sure I had some annoyance in my voice which I probably should've avoided, but it kinda pissed me off that he was implying that my dominance of the match was because of my weapon choice. One of my training partners had brought a longer, thinner staff that I used the rest of the tournament (also I won that match with it).

In high school I beat up ATA TKD black belts all the time. Funny thing, THEY were always the bullies. I did manage to become a friend with a couple of them afterward. Both were on the wrestling team with me. Which confused me. They could have easily have beaten me when I took them to the ground, but they acted like they didn't know what to do.

No blows, no blood, no contact, but occasionally it really pays to have trained for decades. Like when the aggressive beggar punk grabbed my arm in Rome - I did one of those rolling arm moves and I was holding his arm. He looked very unhappy and left fast.

I just got back to Hawaii from the Middle East and Tanzania. On a giant plane (Qatar Airways - makes United, Delta and such look like ****) they moved me and maybe a dozen others at the last second to upstairs seats. Some seating screwup. I got another aisle seat so I didn't care, but this Italian guy got all upset that he's been moved to a middle seat. He complained loudly then shut up and sat down. An hour later I hear through the earphones him yelling. I ignore it and it goes on and he's getting louder and louder. Three stewardesses are saying "We're sorry sir," over and over while he bellows away. Poor girls of course had nothing to do with it; he's a bully. He's standing in the food prep area right behind me yelling his ass off, people are getting nervous looks and I've had enough of his bellowing. I figure if it comes down to it I'll let him hit me once then floor the fucker, 'cause I know I don't want to spend time in a Dubai jail for assault. So I get up and turn around and point at him and yell, "Hold it down, shut the **** up and ferme la bouche and silencio!" Or some words to that effect. He looked at me startled and calmed right down and went to his seat, grumbling about filing a complaint report. I asked the stewardesses for an espresso and a croissant and they say sorry, that they only have coffee. I said in that case I must file a complaint and they all laughed and thanked me. He shut up, the three cuties thanked me! Life is good. One little victory!

Then I started hitting the Hennessy cognac - all you want on international flights from the non US airlines (they just have free beer and wine).

"Preparing mentally, the most important thing is, if you aren't doing it for the love of it, then don't do it." - Benny Urquidez